Moebius’s Blueberry – Japanese Hardcover Edition Review

Japanese publisher Enterbrain has released a handsome hardcover edition of Moebius’s Blueberry graphic novel. The book contains 3 stories from the long running series, namely La mine de l’allemand perdu, Le spectre aux balles d’or and Arizona Love.

(above and below) The book also features 2 pieces of tribute artwork/interviews with Japanese manga artist Taniguchi Jiro and Katsuya Terada, and comes with 2 postcards bearing the same artwork.

The artistic influence of the late Moebius is so far-reaching and wide that I think an art book solely dedicated to tribute work is in order – surely we’ll have no shortage of entries. ( check out Otomo Katushiro’s piece in this article. ) Now all we need is a publisher to round them all up.

i still find it amazing that one of the best pieces of Western-American inspired fiction is actually French. the cover illustration alone is probably worth the price of this book, and i hope they publish this in English soon.

fans of both Moebius and Lt Blueberry should also check out Mississippi River, another early American inspired piece from Giraud, and still probably available if you do a little searching on the internet or specialty comic shops.

ZackSeptember 16th, 2012 at 12:58 pm

also, fans of the European take on early American culture should check out Indian Summer, The Paper Man, and El Goucho by Hugo Pratt and Milo Manara (i believe The Paper Man is Manara by himself). all three stories are truly excellent, and all three have been made newly available in Dark Horse Comics’ recent Manara Library Editions, volumes one and two. for real.

Zack – Thanks for the excellent references and recommendations ! I’ve had in mind to get a copy of Milo Manara’s book for review, but there’s quite a few out there and I know not enough about his work to choose the best one.

Which in your opinion would be a good book to start with ?

Captain KeroseneSeptember 16th, 2012 at 7:55 pm

Hey, you forgot to tell there are two texts after Taniguchi’s and Terrada’s: one in mine, and the next is from the translator (who already translated the Incal and Edena’s world into Japanese). 🙂

Blueberry albums were translated in English, but I don’t know if the US editions are still available.

ZackSeptember 17th, 2012 at 1:18 am

Manara has a ton of stuff, and most of it is still widely available, but i’ve been enjoying revisiting it all through the Dark Horse Library books. like i said, volumes one and two have his stories with Pratt, and if you are unfamiliar with Hugo Pratt, that would be a great place to start for that reason too. Indian Summer is one of my all time favorites, and has some of the best panels i have ever seen in a comic ever. i am also a big fan of The Adventures Of HP And Giuseppe Bergman, a set of stories about adventure, that i believe is finally getting collected into the fourth volume of the Dark Horse books. his erotic stuff is also still really fun, and i am a fan of Gullivera and Butterscotch. you won’t find a poorly drawn Milo Manara story, i promise.

i know you can still find Blueberry in English, but these awesome hardcover editions are spoiling me, and i would love to see a proper set for Lt Blueberry as well.

Captain KeroseneSeptember 17th, 2012 at 9:50 am

Until this year there were no complete book of Lt Blueberry in French, except expensive limited collector’s editions. It seems that this year a first volume collecting the albums will be published in France by Dargaud, the original publisher. We hoped it would be a black and white edition for fans, but it’s not sure. It may be in colors.

About Manara, I think your choice to start is good. I like HP and the two first Declic very much. His work in color on Borgia is also a gorgeous must have.

ZackSeptember 18th, 2012 at 2:49 am

i agree. i honestly can’t think of much of his work i don’t like. some of it, like Pandora’s Eyes, is rather benign, but the art is still always fantastic and more than makes up for the impossibly erotic or otherwise ambivalent stories.